Marsh-Mel-O's Adventures: UK Roadtrip Take Two

14th September

This morning was the last morning of Mum's conference, so we packed up our little house and loaded it all into the car before heading into Manchester and the Principal Hotel for the last time. Once there we set Nan up in the lobby with her book and we headed off to the final presentations. Thoroughly interesting as they were, I was quite happy when they were finished and we could begin our road trip!

From Manchester we headed out down the M56 to Quarry Bank. Quarry Bank Mill (also known as Styal Mill) is found in Styal, Cheshire. It is one of the best preserved textile mills of the Industrial Revolution and is now a museum run by the National Trust UK of the cotton industry. Built in 1784, the mill is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. At the site you are able to visit and explore the mill, visit the apprentice house and garden and Quarry Bank House as well as wander the extensive grounds.

Most impacting was the guided tour of the apprentice house. Here you get to see just what life was like for the children who lived there. Timed tickets for the tour are collected upon entering the grounds and we made our way straight to the Apprentice House. The early Industrial Revolution wasn’t just powered by water and steam. It was powered by children. At Quarry Bank, child workers lived in the Apprentice House where they were given food and board in exchange for their labour. Children as young as eight years old were brought from workhouses or from their family homes to the Apprentice House. As many as 90 children lived packed in together, and worked in the mill in exchange for food, clothes and board. On this tour, you can see where these children lived, ate and slept from the 1790s right through to the end of the apprentice system in the 1840s, and explore the garden that the children tended after their long shifts in the cotton mill. Compared to many apprentices in the cities, these children were given access to health care and physicians when required. However the nineteenth century cures for everything from headaches to lost limbs that we leant about might not have been so helpful!

One of the current exhibitions at Quarry Bank is Lost Voices. In 1918 women in Britain were finally given the right to vote, but only if they were over 30 and owned property. This meant that for the majority female workforce in the cotton mill at Quarry Bank, nothing changed. They didn't receive the vote for another 10 years. Lost Voices explores the experiences of women whose stories were not heard, and which are often lost to us today because of their age, status or means. Installations across Quarry Bank bring their voices to life.

After finishing up at Quarry Bank and catching the little golf cart back up the hill, we piled back into the car and headed down the road to Tatton Park. Tatton Park is an historic estate, north of the town of Knutsford, Cheshire. It contains a mansion, Tatton Hall, a medieval manor house, Tatton Old Hall, Tatton Park Gardens, a working 1930's farm and a deer park of 2,000 acres (8.1 km²). Tatton Hall, the mansion on the estate is the main area we walked through. Around 1716 a new house was built on a separate site for the Egerton family. From 1758 improvements were made to the house and between the 1770s and 1816 most of it was replaced by the present neoclassical mansion, designed by Samuel Wyatt and his nephew Lewis William Wyatt. Further additions to the house were made in 1861–62 and in 1884. During the late 19th century large house parties were held in the hall, some of them attended by British and foreign royalty. The mansion contains much of the furniture made for its occupants by the family firm Gillows of Lancaster. Also in the hall is a large collection of paintings, many of them being portraits of the Egerton family, and in addition paintings by Canaletto, Poussin, Chardin, Van Dyck, Vasari, and many others. The Library contains first editions of two novels by Jane Austen. One room is dedicated to a collection of items from around the world assembled by the last owner of the house, Maurice Egerton. In the family wing are the servants' quarters. These include rooms containing much of the equipment and many of the utensils used to serve the family.

Our history quota filled for the day, we headed into Chester to do a bit of shopping through the main centre of town and grab some thing for dinner. We managed a flying visit through the Chester Cathedral before the priest (literally!) shut the doors behind us for the evening prayers. From here we jumped back into the car and made the journey to Conwy, North Wales where our next Air BnB apartment is. After being extremely impressed with the Conwy Castle sights as you come over a bridge into Conwy, (it looks like something out of a fairy tale!) we found our apartment easily enough, although parking was a hassle!! Trying to park a large car on a tiny road with only street parking isn't so fun!!